So, obviously the next Halo game in the franchise will have Spartan Ops. I seriously doubt that they would remove it from the series, and though I believe it was not applied in the correct way in Halo 4, it’s still a great idea.
When 343i announced Spartan Ops, and how they said “build your own Spartan” and such, I immediately thought of Mass Effect. How cool would it be to chose your own missions, go to different locations, see your Spartan in cut-scenes, have your own AI and really feel like you effecting the Halo universe? Of course, to an extent, but you get the idea. While Spartan Ops was good fun, I still found it disappointing. We all know the general problems it had, (I found it really annoying when they would call you “Fire Team Crimson” even though I was playing solo) but now we have a real chance to give 343i some ideas.
Have a cool idea for Spartan Ops? Post it here, I would love to hear what some of you have to say. And who knows? Maybe our ideas can make it into the next installment of Spartan Ops!
With next-gen, there are a LOT of opportunities to expand upon this type of system.
Spartan Ops on the 360 was limited to the system’s capabilities, but this next gen I think a lot of magic can happen.
I’d like to see it as a second campaign within the game. I’d like the difficulty to scale enemies better, and for the number of players to effect how many enemies are in the mission so Solo can be bearable.
I’d like for the dialogue in game to be dynamic and represent how big of a team you’re in (group, duo, or solo).
Less missions a week (maybe three?), but make them longer and structured more like the campaign missions.
I think it would be neat if each mission layout were unique. I wouldn’t mind if the team needed extra time between episodes to do that, either.
I love Spartan Ops. A LOT. I want to see it built upon to make it better. Push the limits of the XboxOne, and see where they can take it.
EDIT: Oh, Skulls! I want this to be a feature as toggles for custom games. Matchmaking would be like Firefight in Reach where players vote for the difficulty.
Now i ain’t trying to be rude or anything, but, i don’t believe Spartan Ops will return. Statistically, it barely made a difference to the population. I found spartan ops as a good expansion to the series. But frankly, i got bored of it really quickly. It was soooo repetitive.
Unless there’s a huge overhaul I hope Spartan Ops 2.0 never sees the light of day.
Even though this was arguably one of the largest factors, It wasn’t just the monotonous gameplay that destroyed it for me in 4. It was also the mediocre writing and Xbox Live Gold requirement.
You strip away the fact that Spartan Ops is set in the Halo universe and you’re left with one generic–Yoink- sci-fi and set of characters. The story woven into gameplay itself was nothing more than a shallow overlay to an already sub par arcade experience. I think more credit was given to the episodes than deserved as it’s so far the closest it has gotten to a “Halo show”. (yes I am aware an actual live-action series is in the works)
As for the gold membership req, of course you need it for Spartan Ops matchmaking, but I found it ridiculous I couldn’t play it offline or split screen with silver. If you don’t have gold then right out of the box 2/3rds of the game is restricted. At least with Reach you could play Campaign as well as Firefight offline.
You can play Campaign offline regardless
You can play Firefight offline regardless and create a custom match
You can play multiplayer offline with “Custom” Games
…but you can’t play Spartan Ops offline?
How do we know for sure that Spartan Ops will be featured in the next Halo game? 343i said themselves that creating Spartan Ops required a lot more time and resources than they imagined.
I agree with all of Ka Five’s points. I would love to see Spartan Ops as an actual second campaign, and I’d like to see quality over quantity. It seemed like it was handled the other way around in Halo 4.
I’d like to see the implementation of activatable Skulls, and although I don’t care much for it, many would love to see a scoring system. I found Fireteam Crimson to serve as a poor placeholder position for the canon as the Fireteam was limited to 4 players, it suggested that we wore a red color as our primary, and all of our decisions were made for us. The ways to approach a combat situation on the Spartan Ops battlefield were usually very limited, so hopefully we are given more opportunities to play Spartan Ops the way we want the next time around.
I want to feel like I’m a Spartan. Whether I’m a lone wolf or a member of a -Yoink- Fireteam. I want my actions to matter in the outcome of the events in the Halo universe.
> Unless there’s a huge overhaul I hope Spartan Ops 2.0 never sees the light of day.
I agree. They were headed in the right direction with the second half of the season, but it still wasn’t really that great imo. I agree with the others that say less missions per week, and Spartan Ops as a Spartan IV campaign. I hope they radically change the formula, with more mission variety (less button pressing, more counterintelligence, Space-VBSS, etc.)
But only if it’s more like episodic campaign and less like arcade with a dash of story.
I want my character to talk, I want them to be an actual person (even if it’s archetypal characters) rather than a empty vessel for me to insert myself into. I want to see my character in cutscenes. I want more objectives (think of all the MP objective modes we have and have had and how you can make them believable situations and scenarios) besides kill everything and push this button. I want vehicle sections. I want to be able to do crazy stuff like I’ve done before in campaign. We could have had a LNoS in one SpOp mission but that Covy Crusier was handled off screen.
Beyond re-playability issues, lack of skulls, no failure state, etc.
Honestly the biggest problem is with Spartan Ops was really about quantity vs quality. 343 was in such a rush to give us lots of content that it was incredibly bloated.
Spartan Ops was in dire need of an editor. You can cut half the missions from Spartan Ops and the overall story doesn’t change in the slightest. We would have had FAR fewer repeat locations, fewer repeat scenarios, the story would have felt tighter, and imagine everyone would have been much happier.
Its nice to have lots of content but if it is not all of consistently high quality than it would be best to stick with “less is more” “quality over quantity” philosophies.
Here are some things 343 can improve on that can make it more enjoyable and replayable well keeping some aspects of it. Not all has to be used though or added at launch of the game. Sops and campaign idea - Google Docs
> Now i ain’t trying to be rude or anything, but, i don’t believe Spartan Ops will return. Statistically, it barely made a difference to the population. I found spartan ops as a good expansion to the series. But frankly, i got bored of it really quickly. It was soooo repetitive.
Not to sound rude either but most people who say its repetitive either just copy what others have said or just played episodes the first 3 episodes which IMO (and other Sops players) are the worst. 1,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10 are pretty good. Just 2 and 3 gave Sops a bad rep and 4 wasn’t too big of a change. After 5 it got pretty damn cool.
In my opinion, SpOps has a lot of potential but it would need to become a second Campaign. It needs Campaign-worthy missions, Campaign-worthy characters and a Campaign-worthy story, so that it gets a truly great experience.
SpOps would need:
Variety and Uniqueness:
The main issue I have with the current SpOps is its repetitiveness. Repetitive locations, repetitive missions and repetitive encounters. I think there are only a few missions that truly stand out and stay in mind. All that combined led to a lack of replay value.
To solve this issue each mission would have to be its own unique experience.
Each chapter could be build around a specific location (a large map) that will expand during the separate missions. Also, there has to be more variety in the mission types (i.e defending, capturing/boarding & destroying, search & rescue/escort, stealth & infiltration, investigation/exploration, vehicular warfare, space/ ground/ naval combat, etc.). Open sandbox missions that offer several ways to successfully complete the mission would add more replay value as well.
Challenge:
There has to be the possibility to fail a mission. Either because you wasted all your lives or you failed the objective/ goal. Therefore, instead of infinite lives there should be a collective life pool.
Adding challenge will also increase team play because when you do not work together you will very likely fail the mission. Currently, Crimson operates more like a pack of Lone Wolfs than like an actual Fire Team.
Story and Characters:
It would need a well-written and enthralling story and unique, interesting and believable characters with elaborated personalities and background stories.
Relation to the story:
Personally, I think the missions had often not really much to do with what actually happened in the cinematics (story). Exaggeratedly said, it has felt like as if Crimson gets only send on missions most of the time so they do not lounge around the Infinity.
They were sent out to clean an area, activate some buttons and in the next chapter they were sent to the same area to clean it again.
I think it would have been nice to meet some protagonists during certain missions or operate together with them from time to time. Crimson could have appeared in in-game cut scenes as well.
The issue with SpOps:
Like I’ve said, to create and form a great and entertaining experience with SpOps it has to become Campaign-worthy. Nonetheless, developing and creating 2 separate, unique and high quality Campaigns means a lot of hard work and resources what was probably the issue that season 1 already had.
That’s why I slightly doubt that SpOps returns as a (free) game mode in the next Halo title.
> Hopefully Spartan Ops does make it back into the next Halo. As of right now this is the only thing pointing to that. (Recent Job listing.)
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> http://teambeyond.net/spartan-ops-for-halo-5/#sthash.yqcBYdHI.dpbs
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> This may not be Spartan Ops as we know it though. (My guess is that this episodic game content will tie in with the Halo TV show next year.)
This is sorta a “bump”, but your ideas are great guys! Those of you who think Spartan Ops shouldn’t return… come on. It has so much potential! Really, I think the biggest thing for me is seeing my Spartan in cut-scenes. I mean, in Reach, you got to see your Noble 6 in cut-scenes, and I thought Reach did that very well. Sure, Noble 6 is practically a mute, but hey, you cared about him and there we several emotional moments between him and the player. So, that being said, while dynamic conversations would be really cool, they’re not exactly needed to complete the Halo experience.
I agree with everyone’s point about it being a campaign game, but I also have thought of a few other points that I think would improve the experience.
Implementation of friendly AI (that’s actually helpful) can give the player a lot of perspective to the situation. It could make the mission feel more intense, like a battle, and it also serves a regulator for the strength of Spartans (in my opinion). Having a squad of marines with snipers or rocket launchers that is actually effective against the enemies downgrades some of the feats that your fire-team will accomplish, which I think is better because if you feel like you’re unrealistically unstoppable the whole time by defeating wave after wave of enemies by yourself, you don’t really feel accomplished and it gets boring quickly. There has to be something that makes you feel a little bit smaller in the scope of things to make you feel less overpowered.
With that said, I think a lot can be done with the new engine to make the game-play a lot more intense.
-Friendly air support could be implemented, which will fend off against enemy Banshees, Spirits, and Phantoms. With a laser designator, you lase targets for them to take out. Adding that extra layer of combat will immerse the player dramatically.
-I assume there will be an AI capacity improvement, much needed. Obviously this will make the battles much larger, probably more immersive, and more complete.
-Joint operations with other Spartan teams would be awesome and could offer a lot of variety with missions.
-More vehicular-based combat. These parts in missions are a trademark of Halo and therefore tantamount to the experience.
-Larger maps are desperately needed. Going over the same terrain is tiring after a while and doesn’t give you that refreshed feel you should get when starting a new mission.
-Perhaps implement hints to combat taking place off the map. For example, have explosions light up the sky in the horizon, have ships dog-fighting in the distance, sounds of gunfire, AA fire shooting into the sky, huge ship battles going on, etc. This can make the players feel much more immersed.
Also, to wrap up, epic music is a MUST. Think about every classic Halo moment you’ve experienced in the past, with explosions and vehicles and marines all fighting and aircraft in the sky. Chances are there was intense and hype music playing which could have pushed you into the game single-handedly. Halo has forgotten its epic music since Halo 3. That’s why Halo Reach’s campaign sucked (in my opinion) and Halo 4’s was a little boring. They, for the most part, have no awesome moments where you’re in a gauss hog shooting at a bunch of Ghosts with that trademark Halo music playing in the background (I’m picturing the chapter “Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear” with the Arbiter in Halo 2). These moments are truly what’s made Halo so epic and special. It’s fun and exciting and it gets you into the game. I fail to see why they’ve left them out, but in my opinion, reimplementation is vital.
> > Now i ain’t trying to be rude or anything, but, i don’t believe Spartan Ops will return. Statistically, it barely made a difference to the population. I found spartan ops as a good expansion to the series. But frankly, i got bored of it really quickly. It was soooo repetitive.
>
> Not to sound rude either but most people who say its repetitive either just copy what others have said or just played episodes the first 3 episodes which IMO (and other Sops players) are the worst. 1,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10 are pretty good. Just 2 and 3 gave Sops a bad rep and 4 wasn’t too big of a change. After 5 it got pretty damn cool.
Well FYI i actually played up until episode 8…or 9 i can’t remember now. And no i am not copying what others say, maybe thats what you do, but i sure as hell don’t. It did get repetitive, it was the same thing every time. Infiltrate an area, clear out all the waves of enemies that come swarming in on you, press a few buttons, go to the next level. It was annoying. Yeah the quality did pick up afterwards but after what? I lost interest.
I think Spartan Ops should focus more on quality than it does on quantity.
Instead of getting five, repetitive, and fleeting missions each week, let’s get three, high quality, and enjoyable missions each week. I want variety in each mission, and honestly, having to shell out five each week seems to result in a massive drop in not only variety, but also in every other potential benefit.
Let’s also have a clear connection between the cutscenes and the missions, and let’s also have the dialogue be more “mature”. I don’t want to hear Miller saying, “Watch out Crimson, bad guys!”
> I think Spartan Ops should focus more on quality than it does on quantity.
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> Instead of getting five, repetitive, and fleeting missions each week, let’s get three, high quality, and enjoyable missions each week. I want variety in each mission, and honestly, having to shell out five each week seems to result in a massive drop in not only variety, but also in every other potential benefit.
>
> Let’s also have a clear connection between the cutscenes and the missions, and let’s also have the dialogue be more “mature”. I don’t want to hear Miller saying, “Watch out Crimson, bad guys!”
